


the house on fire

by relationshipcrimes



Series: prompt fics 3 [7]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:40:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29480823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/relationshipcrimes/pseuds/relationshipcrimes
Summary: Years after canon, Goro still keeps an eye out for Akira to make sure that they're safe. This would be easier if Akira knew that he was still alive.
Relationships: Akechi Goro & Persona 5 Protagonist, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Series: prompt fics 3 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2164914
Comments: 5
Kudos: 159





	the house on fire

**Author's Note:**

> written for the prompt "fire" from @shouldbewerking on twitter

It's a matter of debts. Akira saved his life—more than a few times over, and in more ways than just physically. Goro won't stand to let Akira one-up him that way. If Akira dies, then that's one more disappointment to Goro's rival than Goro's pride will allow.

He slides Akira's dorm room window open just shy of four in the morning. (He's glad that Akira's chosen a first-floor room for the second year in a row.) Akira's bed lies empty except for the cat curled up in a black dot at the center, which isn't really much different from the way Akira tends to curl around Morgana like Morgana is the actual occupant of the bed and Akira is just the temporary occupant of the periphery. Goro doesn't like to think about whose dorm room Akira's off spending the night at, and what sort of activities require Akira to leave their beloved cat behind, so he hops inside and begrudgingly gets on the floor.

Goro's never been the best at technology, but from his few years in Shido's conspiracy and watching his security teams, he knows firstly, all the easy bugs get implanted in computers and smartphones anyway. Fortunately, that should be a job for Oracle (since Akira is being incredibly oblivious to the cruelties human nature gets up to outside of the Metaverse, as per usual). After that is bugs in the living space, which is significantly more difficult for Oracle to get, since most of them rely on hardware and minimal connection to the internet.

In less than a minute, Goro's eyes narrow on a little motion detector lurking by Akira's bed. He lays a cloth over it, crushes it underfoot muffled by the cloth, and then collects the pieces into the rag. Just like crushing a real life bug.

One of Shido's security lackeys once told him that, because bugs are so frequently placed on people's clothes or bags in movies, these are the number one places to _avoid_ putting a tracer. If a tracer has to be put anywhere, it should be put into a shoe. This is why, after Goro checks the floor with a flashlight, he has to examine Akira's extensive collection of shoes of varying heel heights, growingly increasingly impatient with both the ungodly number of it and his own nerves every time Morgana mewls in his sleep. There's a collection of gifts and junk from college friends shoved in the back of the closet; Goro grudgingly goes through that too, gritting his teeth at the sight of all the news friends Akira is making and all the ways Akira is moving on with their life.

After a thirty minute search and yet another bug crushed in the palm of his hand, Goro knows he's pushing his luck sulking around with Morgana not five feet away and starts collecting any evidence he was there. There's only so much he can do. Goro risks too much doing a bug sweep as it is; he isn't going to go snooping around Akira's computer with their horny demon cat hanging out on their bed four feet away.

Then Goro slides back out the window the way he came, drops soundlessly out the first floor window, turns right, and nearly walks directly into Akira.

For a second, both of them freeze.

Goro thinks: Did he move too many objects the last time he came? Was there a camera he missed? Did Akira—did Akira not bother to remove the soundtaps, knowing that someone else was removing them on a regular basis for them, and that they could figure out who it was if they just left the bugs alone and waited for Goro to return? Was this an intentional trap? Did Akira choose to have a first-floor dorm room again this year because they knew Goro came in and out by the window? How long was Akira standing here for him?

Akira stares at him.

"Well done," says Goro and draws himself up straight. "I shouldn't be surprised that you can still lay a trap like that. What was it that gave me aw—"

Akira punches Goro in the eye.

Goro staggers and doesn't quite fall and ducks Akira's next lunge which doesn't turn out to be a punch after all, as Akira grabs Goro's collar and drags him close like one of Goro's worst and horniest nightmares, and then shoves him down and out of sight just as Morgana's head shoves itself out the window.

"Did we get him?!" the cat yowls from the window. Goro immediately scrambles against the wall and out of sight. Morgana blinks stupidly at Akira standing (apparently) alone. "Eh?"

"No," says Akira.

"What?! But Oracle's motion sensor went off...!"

"Maybe I tripped it on accident."

The cat groans exaggeratedly. "Nothing again?!"

"Maybe we would have caught something if you hadn't fallen asleep," says Akira amiably.

"Okay, I know, I know! It's just hard staying up every night!"

"I thought cats were supposed to like the dark."

"The only cat who likes the nighttime is you! I'm going back to bed," Morgana grumbles. "Don't stay out in the cold, okay?"

"I'll come back in a second."

"Mrr," says the not-cat, and disappears back inside. Akira shuts the window, hesitates, and then walks to the left and out of view of the window to fake their exit, only to drop back down and crawl back to Goro out of the view of the window.

Goro immediately squirms away. Absolutely his most inelegant moment, although all his moments in front of Akira seem hopelessly inelegant no matter how hard he tries. (God, his eye hurts. Akira really didn't miss with that punch.) "I suppose I'm in your debt a second time, now," he says.

Akira leans in. Now Goro can't move away without making it weird. "What are you talking about?

"I don't need your help. And I don't intend to let you keep your advantage over me."

"Advantage?"

Goro scowls. "Go back inside, Akira. No need to gloat that you've helped me yet again."

"I'm going to punch you."

"Again?"

Akira's eyes are wide in the dark, which used to be an image that haunted Goro's dreams (in a... variety of ways), but now their wide eyes look like they're barely holding back the impulse to strangle him. (Out of frustration, not in the way Goro used to dream about.) Or kill him. (Also not in the way Goro used to dream about.) "Why are you hiding from me?"

"Let me go."

"I'm not keeping you here," says Akira, as if Akira weren't the person who punched Goro in the eye and is now backing Goro up against the wall while they sit in a pile of bug-infested fall leaves and frozen condensation under Akira's bedroom window. Goro smiles insincerely. "Leave if you want to."

"I will," says Goro, and makes to stand one more time, just as Akira says, “I tended your grave."

Goro freezes.

“But you knew that,” Akira says.

Akira is unbelievably and inappropriately close. Goro's personal space has a bandwidth larger than most people's, and he has always hated it when interviewers or fans got too close. Now Akira's chest is inches away from him. Goro is hyper-aware of Akira's legs tucked below Goro's knees, Akira's hand by Goro's hip. If he moves even an inch, Goro is sure that he will brush one of Akira's arms or he might feel the warmth of Akira's body in the cold air, and either one of is absolutely unacceptable.

"Apologies for your mistaken assumptions about what we owe each other," Goro replies.

Some last scrap of emotion that Goro hadn't thought was there falls from Akira's face, leaving nothing but a bitter, dark disappointment.

"I don't know why you expected I owe it to you to explain myself," Goro says, in a panicked, knee-jerk response. "I don't owe you my time or attention—"

"Then why were you in my dorm room," Akira says.

"—and for that matter I thought I made it explicit that our connection was only until we left Maruki's reality, so it's only natural that we've gone our separate ways—"

"Then why were you in my dorm room," Akira says.

"You know damn well why. Why are _you_ lying to your demon pet about me _not_ being in your dorm room?" Goro snaps.

For a long second, Akira just looks at him like an unblinking cat, intently examining something in a corner of a room that nobody else can see. Then they lean back, like they've gotten the answer they wanted.

 _Don't make me say it_ , Goro wants to hiss, or _Don't be gauche_ , but Akira doesn't ask him to say anything he doesn't want to, just leans back and holds out an apologetic hand to help Goro up from where he's pressed against the wall. Goro hates that Akira has a way of making Goro want to tell them stupid things of his own volition: _Our relationship was ninety parts manipulation. I'm a better memory than I am a person. I don't indulge in wishful thinking._

Goro ignores the hand and sits up on his own. Akira doesn't even seem to notice. "I want to see you again," says Akira.

 _They do_ not _want to see you again_ , Goro snaps at himself, _and they don't mean it that way_ , because the alternative means his heart will leap directly out of his chest into Akira's hands. "I'm busy," Goro says instead.

"With what?"

"None of your business," says Goro.

"Shido's conspiracy," Akira answers themselves.

Goro looks at them sharply. He really shouldn't have imagined that the ex-Thief would have contented to be a sitting duck, even after returning to civilian life. "Do you make a habit of asking questions you already know the answer to?"

Serenely, Akira leans back on their heels, like they're having a friendly outing at four in the morning to sit in a park together. "Only when you don't give me a choice. Futaba has been looking around."

"Then she should know that I am the least worrying of your potential stalkers, Kurusu," Goro says tartly. “The whole world is watching you go through your uneventful business degree."

Akira leans their cheek on one hand. "Are you getting rid of them?"

If that's Oracle's intel again—damn if it wouldn't be helpful to have the Phantom Thieves' famed hacker on his side, but there's no use in wishing for impossibilities. "Every sick fuck who ever rubbed elbows with him is still in power. It's a wide-spread rot. Injustice on a governmental scale, not just a corporate scale. I would say it's about removing Shido's work and his influence, but it's not. It's repulsive even when it has nothing to do with him. There's more scum in the upper echelons of society than the floor of a subway station—"

“Can I help?”

"No," says Goro immediately, without thinking about it. "What? Absolutely not."

For a second, Joker sits in front of Goro: Keen on their target, unwavering and unshakeable in their resolve, and fully intent on snatching your heart from your ribs and handing it back to you on a plate with a bow and a smile.

"Why not?" Joker asks quietly. "That sounds kind of fun, actually."

There's a little gleam in their eyes that tells Goro that Akira's idea of _fun_ might be Goro's idea of _revenge_.

Goro swallows. Goro and Akira together would be a team capable of tearing the average country apart—Goro doesn’t have any proof on that, but it’s what he believes as surely as he believes in gravity.

"Don't you want to go back to normal life?" Goro says stubbornly.

"I'm already in a normal life," says Akira.

"And you're just going to throw it away?"

"Normal life is just as boring as I remembered it to be."

That's the sort of carelessness that people who naturally inherited _normal life_ have. They don't think that maybe it's an honor to go to your boring classes and take half-assed notes and skim through social media while the professor lectures without a care in the world. They don't think that it's a blessing to only have to worry about making the budget check out, rather than who'll be waking them up in the middle of the night with a gunshot. A normal life was supposed to be Akira's prize for their year in probation hell, for their religious adherence to moral code and high-road ethics. Only the ungrateful throw such things away.

"Absolutely not," says Goro at last. "Not with the number of people watching your every move."

Akira frowns and cocks their head.

"Surely you must have noticed." From Akira's confused expression, they hadn't. "Good god. Oracle told you that people are watching you; surely you must have realized what that meant. You can't even miss a class without some foreign government patsy taking note of it. You're an individual of international interest."

Akira has the gall to look surprised—the fucking idiot, always assuming the best of other people.

 _Do you know the amount of bullshit I have to go through to keep you and your merry band of friends safe?_ Goro wants to spit, but he knows that's not his place to say. "Your every move is under watch. Your dorm building. Your room number. Your purchases. Your favorite shirts. The cups you drink your coffee out of. Everything—" Goro nods at the dorm room window "—in that room damns you. There’s leaders of entire nations out there who want a Phantom Thief's head, Kurusu. You think you can just run away and undermine a nearby government without someone noticing?"

Something is happening on Akira's face, but Goro can't read it. "Really?" Akira says, very softly.

"Yes, _really_. There's more than one way to make a prison, especially with the amount of cameras people can use. The reason I get away with being as free as I am is because everyone thinks I'm dead."

Akira seems to think about that, which gives Goro hives: When Akira starts thinking, that's a bad sign for everyone involved. Akira does not take action quickly, but when they do, their actions are always decisive. They clear all hesitation before they move. They make a formidable ally, and for this reason, Goro does not want them as an enemy, and most certainly does not want them to think.

"Understand your position," Goro tells them. "Your hands are tied. Keep your head down, hope they lose interest in you, and leave the rest to me."

It's the least Goro can do to settle the score between them. Goro makes to stand yet again. “Wait!” Akira says, _again_ , and Goro hesitates, _again_. He shouldn't have, because then Akira says, quite plaintively, "So I can't do _anything_?"

Goro feels almost bad from how earnestly Akira says it. They have the hurt honesty of someone realizing that the world is even crueler than they thought; Goro can't understand how Akira believes in the best of people even when they've seen the very worst, only to be disappointed again and again and again. Goro feels almost bad to tell them no— _almost_ being the key word, because he knows this is what will keep Akira alive.

"No," Goro says coldly. “Not in the slightest. Just stay where you are, keep your head down, do nothing interesting, and let the powers that be pass you by. Content yourself to a surveillance prison. At least you’ll be alive—for whatever that’s worth.”

With that, Goro finally extricates himself from their little corner. Like he always does, he tells himself this will be the last time, except this time he knows there really will be no next time. It's a matter of Akira's life. He isn't so foolish as to crack and come crawling back into contact with Akira and compromise their safety over his weak heart. "Don't look for me," he tells them, and strides off with as much dignity as he can muster in the direction of the darkest streets. When Akira doesn't call after him, he knows that he's done it right.

* * *

Akira's dorm room is quiet and dull. Musty with books they don't like. Claustrophobic and boxy in the way dorm rooms tend to be. Up to their eyes in a degree they don't want, in a dorm hall full of students they don't care for, and Goro Akechi is slipping through their fingers.

_Every sick fuck who ever rubbed elbows with him is still in power. It's a wide-spread rot._

Their fingers scrape through their hair. Akira's head hurts.

_Just stay where you are, keep your head down, do nothing interesting, and let the powers that be pass you by. Content yourself to a surveillance prison._

Morgana mewls in his sleep and flips over onto his back. "Mrrh?" His over-large blue eyes blink open. "...Joker?"

_At least you’ll be alive—for whatever that’s worth._

Akira's lips thin to knife-points.

* * *

Goro moves again. Away from Akira, this time; he can tell himself quite truthfully that he has better things to do than lurk over Akira's life like an unpleasant and increasingly grouchy guardian angel. He gets a new hotel room in a new city. He picks his marks. He does the job, and then repacks all his stuff and gets a new hotel room in a new city, and does it all over again. He watches the news and refuses to check Akira's status in any way, and with the endless reel of news from all over the country, he doesn't think too much about a dorm building at Akira's university burning down.

* * *

A week later, Goro comes back from a twenty-four hour long mission craving a shower, some sleep, and for nothing upsetting to happen for the next week. He slams his hotel door behind him. Throws his duffel bag down the hallway. Yawns as he pulls his shirt off and blinks his crusty, dry eyes open as his shirt comes off to see Morgana and Akira playing Monopoly on his bed.

"I collect another five hundred," Morgana announces with a snicker.

"Dick," says Akira, and then looks up at Goro standing, bewildered and shirtless, in his own hotel room. "Hi."

"Took you long enough!" Morgana complains, waving his tail angrily and knocking over a handful of pieces. "Joker's been waiting for you for ages! Where've you even been?!"

"How did you _get_ in here?!" Goro sputters.

"With a lot of trouble," Morgana says irritably, with his usual awful habit of speaking on Akira's behalf. "Geez, how many deadbolts do you need? You know the hotel is going to be angry with you for that, right?"

" _What_ are you doing here?!"

Akira rights a couple Monopoly pieces and draws a card. "A couple weeks ago, I died tragically in a fire that took down my whole dorm. I was buried yesterday. My friends are loudly grieving over the fact that I no longer legally exist." Over the tips of their cards, Akira gives Goro a very tiny smile. "Figure it out yourself, detective."

Goro is almost certain he is being flirted with by a person telling him about faking their own death and giving him bedroom eyes over Monopoly cards.

"You can't be here," Goro insists weakly.

"I'm here anyway." Akira gives him a significant look. "Are you going to play the game or not?"

Morgana butts his head against the Monopoly board, but Goro at least has enough braincells to know that Akira doesn't mean Monopoly. And that this—all of this—is probably Goro's own fault, which is what gets him laughing, the sound a little unhinged in his own ears.

"You really are one step ahead of me," Goro says, "even now."

"One day you'll outsmart me," says Akira.

"Don't be a smartass." Goro sits heavily on the bed and sighs, meeting Akira's smug look right in the eye. "Alright. Deal me in."

**Author's Note:**

> twitter [@p5crimes](https://twitter.com/p5crimes)  
> tumblr [@akechicrimes](http://akechicrimes.tumblr.com)
> 
> sequel here: ["the only way out is through."](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29480967)


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